


A mirror to reveal all your desires

by Daughter_of_the_TARDIS



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s11e09 They Take You Away, F/F, I Had To, Solitract - Freeform, Space Wives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 09:11:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16829551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daughter_of_the_TARDIS/pseuds/Daughter_of_the_TARDIS
Summary: “Hello sweetie.” River Song purred out the words, and the Doctor nearly dropped to her knees.Of all the forms the Solitract could have picked, it had to pick this one,she thought.





	A mirror to reveal all your desires

White. Everything was white, with no variation at all. The Doctor walked through the blank landscape, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. Ryan, Yaz, and Graham had all been thrown out of this universe - Erik had vanished, and then Trina and everything else had disappeared. A strange mixture of hope and worry pooled in her chest - she was the only one left in the Solitract universe, which meant that now she was the only target left for the Solitract to latch onto. It would take the form of someone that she loved, and the Doctor was both anticipating and dreading finding out whose form it would take.

She kept walking, the whiteness fading slightly as a blurry outline came into view, sitting on something. As she moved closer, she could make out more of the figure - like the hard-backed chair that the person sat on, and a mane of wild curls that the Time Lord would know anywhere.

“Hello sweetie.” River Song purred out the words, and the Doctor nearly dropped to her knees. _Of all the forms the Solitract could have picked, it had to pick this one,_ she thought. Long, shapely legs were tucked into jodhpurs and knee-high leather boots, and a green blouse made of slightly shimmery fabric that clung to her curves. Her gun belt was wrapped snugly around her waist, and the Doctor knew that if she checked the underside of the holster, she would find her wife’s initials carved into the leather.

A wide smile spread across her face, and she took off. Her boots smacked against the ground as she ran, throwing her arms around her wife and breathing in the familiar scent of jasmine and gunpowder. She pressed a kiss to the other woman’s lips, burying her hands in the familiar mane of curls that she loved in every regeneration. She tasted the same as ever - like mint and sugar and something that just tasted like Time.

“How are you here?” she asked, burying her face in the mass of golden curls that let her hide while simultaneously trying to suffocate her. River’s arms tightened around her, and for a moment she worried why her wife was shaking before she realized it was the other way around. River wasn’t the one shaking - the Doctor was. 

“You said I could stop being Trina - so I became someone new.” She could feel her wife's shoulders shrugging under her cheek, but her words made the Doctor freeze. For a moment, she had almost forgotten the truth. 

“That's not someone new.” she said, pulling away slightly - although not more than a few steps . “You're River - how can you be River Song?”

She leaned forward in her seat, curls falling over her shoulder and red lips quirking in amusement. That was enough for the Doctor to know what she was going to say before she could get a single word out. “Spoilers.”

The Doctor laughed despite herself - the first real, properly happy laugh that she had had in awhile. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed hearing that.” she admitted, falling back under the spell that the sentient universe was weaving, just for a moment. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.” Her hand came up to cup her wife’s cheek, and she smiled when River leaned into her touch.

“Of course I know, sweetie.” River said, that knowing smile on her face. “I know everything about you.” that statement was enough to shatter the illusion again. Because River - while she knew more about her spouse than anyone else alive except maybe Missy - didn’t know everything. She couldn’t have. There were secrets that had to be kept - by both of them - to ensure the safety of planets, of people, of entire galaxies at times. _Or to preserve their own timeline,_ the Doctor couldn’t help but think.

“You are the maddest, most beautiful thing I've ever seen.” She squeezed her wife's hand in hers before letting it go, taking a step back. “But, River - you're not real.”

The Solitract wearing her wife's face laughed, curls bouncing around her shoulders. “Don’t be ridiculous.” she scoffed. “Of course I’m real! Honestly, Doctor - such a ridiculous old man - or woman, I suppose.” there was a spark of mischief in her green eyes - one that the Doctor knew better than she knew herself. 

“If you’re River - _my_ River - tell me somethin’ only she would know.” the Doctor challenged. Fire burned in her eyes and in her throat at the thought of this creature taking the face of River - her River - and using it against her like this.

The Solitract tilted River’s head, a few stray curls falling into her face as she thought of an answer, smiling when she came up with one. She leaned forward, bringing her lips up against her wife’s ear, and said a single word. One long, musical word that rolled off of her tongue, making the Doctor gasp at a name that she hadn’t heard in centuries. River smirked as she pulled away. “Believe me now?” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes at her. 

Every fiber in her body - every cell, every _atom_ \- was screaming at her to say yes. So it hurt that much more when she was forced to say, “No, I don’t. Because you can’t be her.”  
” she pulled away from the Solitract-River, taking a few steps back despite the way her wife reached out to her. “But it was nice while it lasted.” she admitted.

“This is almost definitely my last time seeing you, isn’t it?” the Doctor asked, a sad smile on her face as she memorized the shifting of color in her wife’s eyes all over again.

But the Solitract-River shook her head. “It doesn’t have to be.” she replied, her face settling into a small smile that had taken the Doctor centuries to realize was faked - just a mask to use to hide the pain behind. It hurt more than she could say to see that look on her wife’s face, even if she knew that it wasn’t really her wife in front of her. Logically, she knew it was a trap. But her hearts were screaming at her to do whatever it took to get her wife to stop looking so sad. But she couldn’t.

“Yes it does.” she said quietly. “If I stay any longer, we’ll both die. And you might not be my wife, but I still can’t let you die.”

“But we’ll be together.” the Solitract urged, climbing out of the chair and taking a few steps in her direction.

The Doctor ignored the Solitract - although she did take a step back each time it took a step forward. “I suppose this is my last chance to say it then, isn’t it?” she asked, talking to herself and not really expecting any sort of an answer. “I didn’t say it enough when you were alive - didn’t actually say it at all, really.” she took a deep breath, steeling herself for what she was about to say. “I love you.” she practically spat the words out, before calming herself down enough to get the words out properly. “I love you, River Song. So much so that I would be willing to do anything to get you back, and every day I lose a little more hope because I still haven’t figured out how to do it.” she poured her hearts out in every word, letting centuries of built up emotions out into the open for the very first time. “And if I could, I would stay with you until the end of time itself. But I can’t because my friends need me.” 

“They’ll be fine without you, sweetie.” River promised. The being wearing her wife’s face smiled, enticement in her eyes. “Stay with me. We can be together here - no more spoilers, no more hiding damage. It will be like Darillium again.”

“My River would never tell me to leave my friends behind. She would be the first to run after them.” Her words rang out into the empty space - sharp and accusing and hollow. She closed her eyes, swaying slightly. As tempting as the idea to stay was, there was still a voice in the back of her head, talking to her. So she steeled her nerves, preparing to say the four words that would simultaneously save and destroy her. “You’re not real, River.”

“But I could have been.” And with that said, the Solitract-River raised her hand, blasting the Doctor out of the Solitract universe and back into her own.

8888

They were heading back to the TARDIS, and the Doctor let Ryan and Yas go ahead of them, hanging back with Graham. The older human had his head hung low, misery written all over his face. 

“I’m sorry that she wasn’t real.” she offered the words to him, keeping her eyes trained on the ground at her feet. She doesn’t know if she’s talking about Grace or River, and it's that lack of distinction that keeps her from saying anything else.

“It’s not important.” she said, brushing it off. For a moment, she almost believes herself. “She wasn’t real.”

But Graham just looked at her with that strange wisdom that humans have, a sad little smile on his face. It was in that moment that she knew the truth - he had figured out that the Solitract had impersonated someone that was important to her. “Were they really?” he asked, and she couldn’t find it in her to actually answer his question. He nodded, like she had given him her answer without having to say a word.

“That’s what I thought.”


End file.
